The trappings of success can wait for Great Britain’s new Olympic 800m champion
She will look into buying a Porsche, “Though I don’t know if my insurance will let me,” laughs Keely Hodgkinson. The newly crowned 800m Olympic champion also has her eye on a gold Cartier ring to commemorate a moment at the Stade de France that will live long in the memory.
For now, though, the only shiny object that matters is the medal she will be able to hang around her neck, while the post-championships reward she is most looking forward to is some quality time with her loved ones on a family holiday in Marbella. Oh, and being able to let the diet slip a little to accommodate the odd chocolate brownie or two.
The 22-year-old’s win means $50,000 in prize money will be heading into her bank account from World Athletics and her new status in the sporting world means yet more sponsors will come calling and the media interest will grow ever larger, but for now those exterior trappings of success can wait for another day.
After waiting three years to experience her first global title, she is going to savour this one. The first stage of doing that came in a Parisian bar late on Monday night.
“I joined my family, I have no idea where,” says Hodgkinson in the midst of the round of early morning media follow-up interviews that come with medal success. “It was great. Everyone was drunk, as you can imagine, but they were really, really happy so it was nice to celebrate with them. The bar was absolutely rammed with friends and faces I hadn’t seen in a long time. It was great to have that support.”
(Getty)
After crossing the line to win the first global title of her career, Hodgkinson was enveloped by a maelstrom of publicity and attention as the emotions poured out. There had been the pressure associated with being the big favourite, the frustrations of coming away from successive World Championships with silver, the desire for the years and months of work to come to fruition right when she wanted them to.
“It was about four o’clock in the morning when I finally had a moment to myself,” she says, reliving the hours that followed victory. “I watched the race back and it was really good to see and to listen to the commentary. It was surreal. It will take a while to sink in but it’s definitely a great thing.”
Her next comment is telling, however. As she watched, Hodgkinson started to pick a couple of holes in the performance. It’s clear that no laurels…
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